To hate going to the hairdressers?

[SebastianTheCrab]

I just hate it. I don't find it relaxing at all.

I hate being trapped in the chair for hours, having to make awkward small talk with the receptionists, assistant and hairdresser, staring at myself in the mirror, having to fob off the endless attempts to flog me products and expensive treatments, smiling and nodding at the end while they gush about how great my hair looks (are they complimenting me or themselves? I mean, I've just been sat on my arse scrolling Mumsnet for hours while they've done all the work?) and then fiddling about with tips for everyone at the end.

But today took the absolute biscuit. I went in for my once-yearly colour and ended up there for five hours. It killed my entire day. I had so many errands I was supposed to run today and had to bin my entire To Do list. I literally walked out in the middle of the blow dry so I could be on time to pick up my son from nursery.

I have no idea what they were doing for so long. They kept putting goop in my hair, washing a bit out, adding more goop, putting me under the heater thing, combing through, adding more goop etc etc. After 3 hours I asked how much longer it was going to take and my eyes nearly popped out of my head when they said 1.5 hours. It ended up taking a further 2.

And my hair looks almost exactly the same.

Dear hairdresser, this is massively obvious who I am if you read this - I'm sorry. I just hate going to the hairdressers!

For everyone that hates it so much, why don't you just... not go?

Humans have managed to get quite far over the millennia without trimming split ends and ombre dip dyes.

And if you truly cannot live without it, you can trim and colour your hair at home.

Hate hate hate the small talk. I used to be a hairdresser too! As an apprentice they tell you to chit chat and compliment the client. Basically if we want tips, kiss your arse. I hate it when they do it me. Hope it wasn't expensive if your hair looks basically the same.

I colour my own hair at home not paying their prices when I can do it myself.

I used to hate it, really hate it, until 6 years ago I found "the one". Now I love it. The small talk isn't awkward, it's a nice chat, we catch up about eachother's children, laugh at the bonkers things our parents have done/said, and slag of the Tories. Time flies. It's a small salon, with 3 stylists. I have only regret had the same one and although I chat to the others I have a relationship with my own stylist and I wouldn't go to anyone else.
I'm going on Saturday, I'm really looking forward to it.

So yes, I get you, but I think it's like a therapist, or a friend - you can't just go to any and expect it to feel right, you need to find the right one.

@GlowingOrb

It’s not that the conversation is boring, it’s that I’m having to converse with a person at all. I’m an extreme introvert. Chatting for hours is utterly exhausting.

I'm not even an extreme introvert and I find it exhausting. It's not about snobbery or misogyny I'm not sure how many times I can repeat that a) I value what hairdressers do and b) I bloody well know I can't come close to replicating it at home anymore than I could administer my own smear test and that's why I go to a hairdresser in the first place!

I just find the process exhausting. I have an autoimmune condition that has basically destroyed my immune system, especially after I had a baby, and prior to lockdown and social distancing, every time I'd go to a hairdresser (roughly every 6 months) I'd wake up sick the next day because I had to make smalltalk for hours on end and just generally be physically and mentally uncomfortable for 2-3 hours at a time.

I hate it too, I haven't got the patience to sit there for hours.
I go to a hairdressers house now. It takes less than half the time. X

Yeah I’m with you OP. I go to the hairdresser because they are skilled and generally make my hair look a lot better than I could make it look at home. Especially with post partum hair loss in the mix. But I have never found the experience enjoyable. I absolutely hate the hard sell of products (I’ve at least found a hairdresser now who doesn’t do that and so I’ve stuck with her). But it’s made previous hairdresser visits really unpleasant. I don’t like the small talk. And I don’t like looking at myself in harsh overhead lighting for an hour.

One absolute gamechanger for me though was realising I didn’t need to go nearly as often as they claim you should. I used to go for a trim and root touch up every 8 weeks, and wondered why my hair didn’t seem to get any longer. (I know, I’m an actual idiot). I now go twice a year and touch up at home, and my hair is really long and lovely now.

The worst bit for me is being plonked in front of a mirror and having to look at myself.

I have to take my glasses off when my hair is being done so I only get a soft focus view

I had a great hairdresser who would either say she couldn't be arsed to talk or would tell me all the drama in her mental family. Incredible colourist too.

She was the best, but she moved city and now I hate every hairdresser I've seen in the last 3 years (because of shoddy work not personally).

I don’t think it’s necessarily snobbery or sneery to say you don’t like the experience of visiting the hairdresser (although obviously it depends what you say). It isn’t snobby or sneery to say you don’t like the experience of going to the dentist or doctor - both middle class male-dominated professions. It’s certainly not implicit in saying that you don’t enjoy the experience of visiting the dentist that you don’t respect the dentist or value the work he or she does.

@OrigamiOwl

I hate going to the hairdresser's too. In my case it's probably because my mum used to cut my hair off if I'd been naughty as a child, so I still see it as a punishment. But anyway... Yes, it's a chore... Making small talk, having to wear a gown that appears to be trying to strangle me, none of it is pleasant.

How very sad for you - I know exactly what you mean. I still have issues with my hair which come from my mother.

@Buddytheelf85

There are posters who have commented that they are not interested in talking to their hairdresser because they don't have the same kinds of interests. Those kinds of comments are snobby and sneery.

I don't like going to the dentist but I don't find the need to comment on the dentists conversational style or interests. It's the drill I'm worried about.

I hate it too.

I go to the nearest salon to work just so I don’t have the extra faff of having to actually travel for the torture session. In fairness, my hairdresser is lovely but I hate the smell of all the chemicals, the robe always makes me feel like I’m choking (I hate anything against my neck), I hate having to look at my fat head in the mirror while my hair is slicked back, I get really hot, I hate smalltalk.

I tend to bring my Kindle and a giant coffee with me so at least I can bury myself in those for a while.

I’ve been colouring my own hair since March and letting it grow which is much easier to deal with. I do miss the swishy feeling of just done hair, though.

The stuff about "oh my hairdresser wouldn't be interested in my interesting hobbies as is only into soaps and influencers" shit is out and out snobbery.

@AurorasLighthouse, I didn't say they wouldn't be interested, I said it's been my experience that the majority haven't been interested when I've discussed the stuff that floats my boat. It's a case of we all pretend to find the other interesting until the end of the appointment but actually have had very little in common apart from we both live in the same area! That's not snobbery.

We live in a culture that tells us with subtle and not so subtle conditioning from the moment we are born that anything perceived as being the milieu of the feminine must automatically be stupid and boring and a waste of time, because females are stupid and boring and a waste of time. It’s internalised misogyny.
WTF?
People of any sex need to get their hair cut.
I need my hair cut. I go to a gender neutral salon.

I bate staring at my face the whole time. And small talk but thats why i bring a phone. If your hair looks the same after 5 hours you might have to consider doing it yourself next time op 😊

Loathe it - the banal chat which is hard to avoid as if I bury my head in a book they ask me to look up - the blaring bloody music - the instant coffee. They've given up on the sales talk because they know I won't and I refuse most of the gloopy stuff. And the head massage. Get out of my face!

I wish I was offered a head massage

I had no idea so many of us hate going to the hairdresser. I haven't been all year. My midsummer murder drunk-friend lockdown haircut is an absolute doozy. We got a bit pissed one afternoon and I handed her the kitchen scissors. It's 2 inches shorter on one side. I don't care, and I've also decided to embrace the grey. Can't ever be arsed to sit through a 3 hour colour hell again.

I'm going full-on wild woman.

My hairdresser is Korean, doesn't speak much English, I love him.

I hate going to the hairdressers, too. The bend over backwards sink hurts my neck, the 'stylists' always somehow make me feel like I'm not quite human, and by the time they've finished, I always look like a twat. Posh salon or SuperCuts, the result is always the same: I go home and wash it, and discover I have badly wonky hair, or leave with an old lady bouffant bob blow-dried to death. At least when I cut it at home, nobody charges me a small fortune to look like a twat.

Am currently sporting at cheekbone-high, tiny fringed bob which is shaved at the back with dog-grooming clippers and I look like an impoverished child from the 1940's. Or maybe Louise Brooks, if you drink enough absinthe...

Just call me Vidal...

My self-cuts are nothing special, but quite adequate. I do a much better job on colour myself, I've found. Plus I have no cruel mirrors in my house. No need for small talk. Cheap as hell!

It is seen as sacrilege to not enjoy going to the hairdressers on MN, I have found via my experience on other threads, and one is told one has simply not found a good one. No. I don't like it. I never did. Not even when I was four.

I used to hate it so much I would cut and colour my own, now I’ve found someone I actually like who does a amazing cut, who knew I have nice big curls and movement (some days. but only if I leave it alone and don’t brush it after I wash it ). I’m still too parsimonious to pay for a colour.

I had a good cut once, at a barber in Florence. No other haircut (many have been horrific, most de-improvements on when I walked in, and the rest forgetable) would be worth enduring the mirrors, the lighting, the social ordeal of it all. But I can do a trim, and a spot of layering, myself.

I used to love going. My hairdresser knew me inside out and always done my hair perfectly.
I always had the same thing and in the end she used to say "usual"? when I went, which wasn't often at all.
I moved 250 miles away in 2013. The last time I had my hair done properly was august 2012.
I didn't bother with it. It got to the time my son needed his first hair cut. Someone recommended someone. She mostly does men's hair but will do a basic dry cut on ladies known through regular clients. I had a dry cut from her in September 2018, then again in 2019. Was okay.

However I get my nails and eyebrows done once a fortnight. I love going. My lady is amazing, I love her. It's my only me time. She knows me so well.